Customer story · One-to-one tutoring

How Keystone Tutors teaches one-to-one onlineon a board built to its tutors’ standard

Keystone Tutors, the London tutoring company founded in 2007, teaches online one-to-one lessons in Pencil Spaces. Before rolling it out, Keystone had a group of its tutors teach on it and rank what had to change. We worked through that list with them, and the board Keystone’s tutors teach on today reflects it.

Illustration: a one-to-one lesson on Pencil Spaces, with a past paper split into pages on the board.
조직
Keystone Tutors
keystonetutors.com ↗
본사는
London, with offices in Hong Kong and Singapore
Teaches
Primary school to university entrance, including 7+, 11+, GCSE, A level, IB and Oxbridge preparation
모델
One-to-one tutoring by employed, full-time tutors and a select freelance pool, online and in person in London
‘연필 공간’에 대하여
Rolled out to tutors from June 2025

Keystone at a glance

Tutoring as a profession, since 2007.

How Keystone runs its tutoring, in its own numbers.

2007

The year Will Orr-Ewing, then a history teacher at a London prep school, founded Keystone.

60+

Full-time tutors Keystone employs, alongside a select pool of freelance tutors.

15,000+

Students Keystone has taught since 2007, by its own count.

Online, its tutors now teach in Pencil Spaces.

Source: keystonetutors.com, Tutors page, read October 28, 2026. These are Keystone’s own figures.

요약

Tutors set the bar, then held us to it.

과제

Tutors who notice every rough edge

Keystone’s tutors teach from past papers, full textbooks and their own notes, and they move fast. A board that fights them over a page, a pen stroke or an undo costs lesson time.

What Keystone did

A trial run by its own tutors

A group of Keystone tutors taught real lessons in Pencil Spaces. Tutor managers gathered every comment in one shared list, and the tutors ranked their top five.

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Fixes first, then the rollout

We worked through the list, with several changes live ahead of the dates we agreed. Keystone began moving its tutors onto Pencil Spaces in June 2025, and the work on their list carried on.

The company

A tutoring company that employs its tutors.

Will Orr-Ewing was a history teacher at a London prep school when he founded Keystone Tutors in 2007. Josh Pull joined him as co-founder in 2008. Today Keystone has offices in London, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Unlike most tutoring agencies, Keystone employs its tutors. More than 60 work for it full time, alongside a select pool of freelancers. Keystone treats tutoring as a career, and it trains its tutors that way.

How Keystone chooses and trains tutors

Every tutor passes an enhanced DBS check, an interview, a practice lesson and an academic assessment, and commits for more than two years. Twice a year the whole team meets to train, and in reflection sessions tutors watch recordings of their own lessons.

Families hear back too. A client manager calls after the first lesson, and parents get a written report every month on what was covered and what comes next.

Why the online board had to be right

Keystone’s tutors teach online to families around the world. Their lessons run on past papers, full textbooks and carefully laid-out notes, so the board has to handle a long PDF, writing over a diagram and an undo without a second thought.

A trial run by tutors

Tutors ranked the list. We worked through it.

Keystone didn’t judge Pencil Spaces from a demo. It put the board in front of its tutors. Early on they singled out the built-in browser, the built-in apps and having video and board in one place. Their list covered what still had to change.

  1. 2023

    The first Keystone tutors

    A few Keystone tutors start teaching in Pencil Spaces. One of the longest-serving tells us what he needs from the board.

  2. Early 2025

    A trial with a group of tutors

    Keystone’s tutor managers gather feedback from the tutors teaching on Pencil Spaces into one shared list.

  3. February 2025

    The top five

    Tutors rank the changes that matter most, led by moving single pages of a long PDF.

  4. May 2025

    First fixes, a week early

    Writing over images, a dependable undo and text boxes with background colors go live a week ahead of schedule. Keystone extends the trial to the end of May.

  5. June 2025

    The rollout

    Keystone starts onboarding its tutors, with a Space set up for each tutoring placement.

  6. August 2025

    Better sticky notes, a month early

    Bold, italics, font sizes and a choice of fonts in sticky notes arrive, along with keyboard shortcuts.

  7. October 2025

    Whole boards, exported and imported

    Tutors can export a whole board and bring it into another Space.

  8. January 2026

    Long PDFs, page by page

    The top request ships: a multi-page PDF can be split into separate pages, so tutors move each page on its own.

수업 현장

The board Keystone’s tutors helped shape.

An online Keystone lesson happens in one Space: tutor and student on video beside the board, with the day’s past paper already laid out. Each change below came from the tutors’ list, and every Pencil Spaces customer now has it.

Long PDFs, page by page

Drop in a past paper or a textbook chapter and split it into pages. Move page 4 beside page 1 without dragging the whole document.

Writing over images

Annotate a diagram or a photo of a worksheet, then select or erase just the writing and leave the image as it was.

An undo you can trust

Undo and redo were reworked so they reverse what you just did, without moving the board somewhere else.

Notes that look like notes

Sticky notes take bold, italics, different sizes and a choice of fonts, so a key formula or a reminder stands out.

Across the company

What Keystone’s office team looks after.

Keystone’s tutor managers and operations team run Pencil Spaces for the whole company from one account.

One account for the company

Lessons happen in Spaces that belong to Keystone’s account, so boards and materials stay with Keystone.

Student accounts set up centrally

The office team invites tutors and creates student accounts, so a new placement is ready before the first lesson.

A Space for each placement

Each tutoring placement gets its own Space link, so tutor and student come back to the same boards every week.

One shared list with our team

Keystone’s requests live in one list we keep together, with calls along the way and an email as each item goes live.

For other tutoring companies

Choosing a platform for your tutors? Five ideas from Keystone.

Let working tutors run the trial

Keystone put Pencil Spaces in front of tutors teaching real lessons, not just an office team watching a demo.

Keep one list, owned by one person

A tutor manager gathered every comment in one shared list, so nothing got lost in scattered emails.

Make tutors rank it

A top five brings the real priorities to the surface and tells the platform’s team what to fix first.

Ask what already works

Knowing what tutors like, such as video and board in one place, tells you what must not break.

Agree dates, then check them in lessons

Keystone tied its trial to delivery dates and kept teaching on the board until the changes it needed were live.

질문

About Keystone and Pencil Spaces.

Who is Keystone Tutors?

Keystone Tutors is a London tutoring company founded in 2007 by Will Orr-Ewing, a former prep school history teacher. It employs more than 60 full-time tutors alongside a select freelance pool, has offices in London, Hong Kong and Singapore, and offers one-to-one tutoring, homeschooling and education consultancy.

How does Keystone use Pencil Spaces?

Keystone’s tutors teach online one-to-one lessons in Pencil Spaces. Each tutoring placement has its own Space, where tutor and student meet on video beside a shared board. Tutors bring in past papers and textbooks as PDFs, write over them and keep their notes on the board between lessons.

How did Keystone decide to move to Pencil Spaces?

Through a trial run by its own tutors. A group of Keystone tutors taught real lessons on Pencil Spaces, its tutor managers gathered their feedback in one shared list, and the tutors ranked their top five changes. Once the first fixes were live, Keystone began onboarding its tutors in June 2025.

What changed in Pencil Spaces because of Keystone’s tutors?

Several things every Pencil Spaces customer now uses: multi-page PDFs that split into separate pages, cleaner writing over images, reworked undo and redo, bold, italics and font choices in sticky notes, keyboard shortcuts, and whole-board export and import. Some arrived ahead of the dates we agreed with Keystone.

Can tutors teach from long PDFs and past papers in Pencil Spaces?

Yes. Upload a PDF and Pencil Spaces can place it on the board as separate pages. Move each page on its own, write over any of them and leave the board as it is for the next lesson. It works in the browser on laptops, Chromebooks and tablets, with nothing to install.

Can our tutors test Pencil Spaces the way Keystone’s did?

Yes. Try Pencil Spaces free for 2 weeks on any paid plan, with no credit card required, and have a few tutors teach real lessons on it. Or get a demo and we’ll help you plan a trial for your team, from student accounts to a Space for each placement.

Bring your tutors online

Let’s plan your tutors’ trial.

See how your tutors, students and lessons would run on Pencil Spaces.

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